selkirk

Can I go back to great-grandparents? Still have 2 above ground, and actually had 5 for most of my life. 1 great grandfather and grandmother lived out in the Owyhee's east of Boise. Mining and ranching mostly, though he used to ride in the rodeo's a bit as well. She taught school in a 1 room school house. My grandad actually rode to school on a horse, with the two little indian girls who lived next door. She eventually decided that her sons were going to get a high school education, so while he was running for sheriff she up and moved to Nampa without telling him He eventually followed. She was one seriously bright tough broad. I remember visiting her when I was in high school, and I never felt like I was 1/2 as informed about what was going on the world as she was. She lived into her early 90's. He actually lived to be 99, and was born in 1899. Best story though was that he punched a car salesman was he 92!!! He told the guy to quit pestering him and he didn't, so smacked him! He actually got his drivers license renewed by mail at 98, when he could only see out of one eye, kind of, and couldn't hear. But damnit he could drive! He actually really liked it when they moved into a retirement home because he has been cooking and taking care of the house on his own for at least 20+ years. Plus he had people to play pool with. Except he was constantly worried people would stop playing with him because he always won. Really neat wonderful people. My grandad ended up serving in Korea, but actually spent most of his life working out at Hanford. He and my grandma are snowbirds now and have more energy than I do. I think they only sleep 5 or 6 hours a night! I think i'd die if I tried that. My grandma's mother actually lived in Grangeville (central Idaho), and we used to go visit her all the time. She was the post-master there for 30 or 40 years, and new everyone. I will never understand how she managed to stockpile so many huckleberries though! Everytime we went to visit my sister and I would end up eating bowls of frozen huckleberries!!!! mmmmmmmmmm, tasty! One of my great grandfathers on my dad's side is actually a Sicilian immigrant, while my great grandma is a half-american indian. He actually worked for the mob running liquor and numbers during prohibition I've heard lots of stories about them bailing out the back of the house when the cops were coming in the front. Finally got out when they were going to send his brother to jail as a sacrificial goat. He said he'd talk, and that was the end of it. Of course it's supposed to be a big dark family secret that none of us great-grandkids know After that he worked for the Teamsters for years. His son (my grandad) served in Korea as well, though i've never really talked to him about it. After coming back to the US he worked in one of the steel mills outside Pittsburgh, eventually worked his way through night school and ended up supervising construction projects in the nuclear industry, and ended up out at Hanford which is where my parents met. His wife (my grandma) is also incredibly sharp. Before they go married (Late 50's) she was actually a rather prestigious vice president of accounting at some firm in the Pittsburgh area. Though after she got married she stayed home, raised the kids and managed to finances. I don't think her father ever forgave my grandad though. From the sounds of it her dad was a rather drunk, belligerant irishman. That set of Great -Grandparents is still alive. We went out to the annual family reunion and visited them last year. (A week long summer binge of golf, food, and video games at a ski-resort in Pennsylvania, where their is always a keg, and people typically start drinking after golf at about 12:00 or 1:00 in the afternoon Great people (all descendands of my great-grandparents, and their siblings) who know how to have fun!)

Vantage was gorgeous on Sat

I'm an ME but not in Portland. Up in Seattle. Should I ask what the idea is?

Some people just aren't worth the air they breath. It just sucks that they choose to inflict themselves on others Maybe we can instigate a process where assholes can be voted out of the country. As a consumer or massive amounts of TV he's probably be all for it.

So if the wealthiest 1% are paying at a lower rate, but holding a higher tax burden, it follows that their level of wealth in absolute terms has increased, while the amount of absolute wealth held by the other 99% has decreased. If they're making more they should damn well be paying more. Their certainly paying their "fair" share if your thinking in terms of relatively flat tax rates, they're paying more than their fair share. However that doesn't mean they should be paying less than they are now. The level of burden that taxes place on lower income people is still much higher than the level of burden it places on more wealthy individuals. I'd be all for a more progressive tax structure. (and granted I make peanuts now, but hopefully won't be in a few more months).

Yeah, governmental efficiency is a whole different ball of wax.

Yep, I know it all after all

You may very well be right. I'm actually of the opinion that just a blank welfare check is a horrendous thing. I'd much rather see some sort of required communal work system developed where those on welfare are either in training to develop the skills or working to societally needed services. If they aren't willing to do one of those, and don't have some compelling reason not to, they'd be pretty much on their own, possibly having any kids they have taken from them. Of course i'm also a big fan of offering free vasectomy's and birth control (even some of the more long terms ones like depo-provera) to anyone below a certain income threshold. I'd love to see program where those on welfare are put to work doing clerical work for understaffed government offices, or doing road clean up, or working in soup kitchens, cutting trails and doing maintenance for the Forest Service, or the National Parks, something. Something akin to what was done during the great depression. At the same time tapping into part of the group to provide child-care, for those out working, or training to make it feasible. However I think things liked fixed end dates aren't any good, but allowing the opportunity to advance within the program itself would be great. Then you could also have CPS ready to step in if they are displaying signs of endangering their children, which could be monitored by whomever is supervising the work crews.

says the middle class white guy to the rest of the middle class white guys

I don't claim to know it all... just more than you So is there some process you would rather follow than "educating" people to "tolerant", "informed", "self-motivated"? Oh, that's right we should just cut them off from welfare, feel sorry for the ones who go hungry, donate all of our excess income to soup kitchens, lock up anyone who would dare become break the law, and then pat those few on the back who manage to become productive citizens. Sink or Swim baby

"telling people" anything is pointless. But your right, it would be good to look at the people who successfully pull themselves up from next to nothing and figure out what attitudes made that possible.

What the hell did I just say? Of course it has to do with breakdown of family unit, cultural attitudes etc, but the way were approaching it now won't fix any one of those. As for the sense of entitlement, that's a huge issue, but not really a class one, more of a cultural one. And laziness it tied back into the whole family breakdown issue. So what do you propose we do? Just keep locking people up ad-infinitum? End wellfare programs all together? There's a great solution Lets see just how quickly we can double our prison population. I'd much rather try to fix the root problems in a more permanent fashion.

Locking up all the criminals is fine, so long as you never let them out. I think it's a bit off the mark that our justice system is so heavily "punishment" driven, instead of "reform" driven. In the long term a carrot is always better motivation than a stick. When you look at recidivism rates it drops incredibly when the inmates are trained in marketable skills, and can get stable jobs at a reasonable wage. The best way to prevent crime is not to punish those who commit crimes (Should prison really be punishment or something more akin to schooling and therapy?) but to figure out how to keep them from wanting to commit crimes in the first place. And that comes down to giving them legal means to have a reasonably comfortable life and to amass stuff that they don't want to loose (i.e. house, car, wife, children, respect). Crime is an issue, but from a large perspective it's a symptom of a more fundamental problem. If we can work on lessening the educational disparity, breaking cycles of crime, and figuring out ways to get people skilled and employed crime rates will drop. They may not dissapear, but they'll shrink. There are so many problems like this it's staggering, and a lot of them tie back to family cycles, crime, violence, domestic abuse, racism. Like it or not we usually turn into our parents, and that's a crappy thing for a lot of people. If we can fix the parents we can fix the kids.

I can agree with that. But it doesn't mean they have to be confirmed.

So what's your wife do?

It seems the checks in balances were designed to be active, and not just rubber stamps.

That's just a waste of money and won't fix anything. I think we should just give representatives and public officials raises. They deserve it for keeping the money away from the grubby poor people!

It's just amazing how rare common sense seems to be though.

Subjectivity... I think that's why a church develops an institutional doctrine, to maintain an objective stance apart from personal interpretations. Seems the consulting is more an art than a science. But, I could be wrong. How much degree of freedom does a priest have with regard to marriage consulting, I mean he can't deviate from doctrine. well, not officially, anyway. Had to do a required marriage counseling thing prior to getting married in a catholic church a few years ago (an awfully good requirement in my opinion), and while the priest himself usually toed the party line, he made it clear, that more important than following the party line it was important for each couple to to find a path that they could agree on, to understand the actions they were taking and why. Keeping the couple stable , happy, and connected was of a higher priority than oh say, the church's stance on contraception. So he made it clear that there were other options, some of which were discussed by the people other than the priest who were helping facilitate the thing. I know, I know, seems like a goofy thing to do. Marriage counseling before your married. And well, if you already talk and communicate well with your fiance you don't learn that much, but that's not the case for everyone. Of the three or four of these things i've heard of, everyone ended up with at least a 1 or 2 couple postponing their weddings because they realized they really didn't know as much aboutt their fiance as they should have, and really didn't have everything figured out yet. On a different note, the whole thing was organized and run by the church, overseen by the priest, but a lot of the discussions were run by two married couples (1 at 5 years, 1 at 15), so they had some people on hand who had experience with the whole stable marriage thing, and weren't only relying on the priest who had never been married. Speaking of which there is actually a growing movement to allow priests to marry. Will be interesting to see where that goes.

So long as what you want it to be is what I tell you it is

Someone takes their spraying a bit too seriously

Selkirk, Still confused... seems like you're arguing with me, but we're saying the same thing. There are many different areas of study available at seminaries, so giving you a specific course outline is a bit pointless, but here are a couple links you can knock yourself out with... http://info.wlu.ca/~wwwsem/syllabus/listen_with_heart.html http://www.trinitylutheranseminary.edu/Academics/CourseCatalog.pdf Obviously, if someone is truly interested in a counseling avenue, their 4-year degree coursework (before seminary) is probably going to be heavy in that area... just as you commented. If their interest is in music & worship, then they're probably going to have an emphasis on arts, etc. Again... we're saying the same thing: most of these folks aren't "untrained." I love spray, so freakin confusing. Not actually arguing with you knelson! Trying to enligthen foraker, JoshK, and Cj001f and the rest of the heathens On a different note it seems most religions in their best forms are open to some interpretation. That's what makes them capable of being more broadly applicable, than to only the time they were created in. Their may be immutable fundamental principles but they have to be able to breath and live a bit. Really not that different than the constitution or any good government. I think to say that the Bible (or any religious text) is immutable and must be read literally is BS. Far too many contradictions to be rectified. (I.E. Old testament stoning vs new testament, let he who has not sinned...) Of course a lot of people still seem to want to interpret it literally in each and every case so we get things like intelligent design, the occasional jihad, all kinds of good stuff. As far as the whole education vs expertise, priests as pedophiles etc.... all those arguments are red-herrings and straw-men anyway

Would you like me to dig up some sample curricula? They're trained for the jobs they intend to do, which are incredibly various. Remember they have to have an accredited undergrad degree in something before they enter seminary. I'd be willing to bet their graduate studies entail a great deal more than only theology though. Your right, going to school doesn't necessarily make you an expert on anything. But it certainly makes you more knowledgeable, and in a shorter time about the things you study than a layman. It still needs to be tempered with time spent practicing your art though. Just like Dr's, Lawyers, teacher, engineers..... Should I keep going?

Finally got my new toy! and had a chance to drag it up Orbit a couple of weeks ago. Really a pretty sweet little thing. Action is nice and smooth, and the trigger bar seems to keep the pull more stable than the old style single stems. I don't particularly like the whole thumb stud thing, and hopefully they'll replace it with a loop (ala the new C4's and Trangos) in the next generation. That said the action is nice and smooth, and it protects those weird little flaring pockets like a dream. Of course it's also good for all the standard cam things like parallel cracks. (Small opening, then flaring behind that, then pinching back down in the very back. It shrinks down to go in then can expand into the pocket easily but cleans easily as well). Out of 7 pitchs I think I place it 3 or 4 times, and all were bomber placements. The only side note is that it can't be with the cams fully extended (like Camalots, DMM's etc that have cam stops) The axle makes more than 1 full rotation so cam-stops aren't really feasible.